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After analyzing each participant’s narrative individually and identifying themes therein, I identified three common themes across the narratives (Lieblich et al., 1998; Molineux & Rickard, 2003; Riessman, 2008). The themes are coping through

occupation, changing roles and responsibilities, and available support. Each will be presented as they emerged in the analysis, and further interpretation will be provided later in the Discussion section.

4.2.2.1

Coping through occupation.

Coping through occupation was a prevalent theme throughout the narratives and was enacted in many different ways by each participant. Occupational engagement helped participants to cope with their transitions, and also allowed them to help in others’ coping processes through doing. The Fox and Natalie both found that occupational engagement helped them to cope and find their identities following their parents’

divorces. Through his desire to explore an abundance of leisure occupations following his parents’ separation, The Fox was able to find a calmer way of being. This was quite significant for The Fox, as one of his greatest worries was becoming an abusive man like his father. Through his endless curiosity, regular meditation, and practice of Eastern religions, he has become the man he hoped to be. Natalie was also able to find peace through occupational engagement. Following her parents’ separation she isolated herself, limiting her occupations to school and sleep. Eventually, she began exploring her feelings through poetry, song and visual art, and was able to work through her emotions. This allowed her to move past those emotions, freeing her to engage and enjoy occupations as she previously had.

Kizzy, Abigail, and Addy all discussed engaging in occupations such as

schoolwork, employed work, socializing with friends, or listening to music as means of escaping their situation. For example, Kizzy coped by concentrating on school rather than

thinking about what was wrong, not admitting it was there, and pretending things were okay. For Addy, when shit got rough at home, she would just stay at school, just study, just put headphones in and read. Participants seemed to expand the purposes of their previously held occupations, turning occupational engagement into a tool for them to escape their difficult situations and provide them temporary reprieve.

Many of the participants discussed engaging in occupations that functioned to help others cope. The Fox, Kizzy and Addy all became major emotional supports for their mothers following divorce. Addy described herself as her mother’s rock, the only person getting her mother through things. The Fox related that he basically became the man of the house at 10 years old. He felt that he replaced the role of the man in her life and

weird overdependence. They described becoming more mature than their mothers quite quickly. They engaged in occupations of caretaking and of emotional and practical support for their mothers.

Hank, Kizzy, The Fox, Addy and Abigail all described helping their parents with household responsibilities to ease their stress. In Hank’s situation, it’s just him and his

mother… so if he does as much as he can to help out, then she doesn’t have to do it. He

took more responsibilities by taking care of his share of the house chores and being with her when she needed him. For Abigail, these tasks were more covert. In order to reduce her mother’s stress, Abigail would try to make sure that the house was properly cleaned,

but she would try to do it so that her mother didn’t know she was doing it. So if her mother was at work Abigail would try to clean so as not to offend her mother and make her think that she has a dirty house.

Conversely, Addy explained that she would engage in undesirable activities such as staying out past her curfew or skipping school to be with friends in order to establish her independence with her parents. She had her own money, good grades, and

volunteered regularly, she could do whatever she wanted to do, nobody could tell her

anything. She felt that she was entitled to the little bit of mischief she wanted to get

herself into. She used her undesirable or mischievous occupations to assert her role in the family.

Finally, Kizzy and Natalie both spoke of periods of occupational deprivation (Whiteford, 2000) following the divorce, where a lack of occupation affected their coping. Kizzy became so entrenched in family life following parental divorce that she was unable to pursue other interests that may have provided some relief from the difficulties of family life. Kizzy was at that age when she wanted to separate from her

family and she never got to do that. Natalie’s deprivation was of her own accord. When her parents divorced, Natalie quit her job. It was just such a disruption in life. It was really almost crippling how much she was affected, just devastated. Not from the

separation but from the emotional aspects. Once the split happened, it was just laying in bed all day, and dwelling. When school started again, she went to class but stopped

participating in any extracurricular activities. All she wanted to do was go to class or be alone. This lasted for a year.

4.2.2.2

Changing roles and responsibilities.

All of the participants who lived with their parents at the time of the divorce took on more household chores and responsibilities. This involved tasks such as cleaning, dishwashing, laundry, and cooking. Addy, Hank, and Abigail took on additional

responsibilities in order to help their parents, who were also adjusting to their new roles. Following her parents’ first separation, Addy explained that her father really worked hard and she did as much as she could, avoiding a ‘woe is me’ attitude. She knew he was doing the best he could, so she was a good kid, just quiet, helped him out, started doing dishes at 7. For Kizzy and The Fox, the additional household responsibilities would likely not have been accomplished without their contribution. The Fox grew up really fastbecause as a single parent his mother couldn’t be at work and at home in the same time, so when

you spend all this time alone, you either learn to cook or you starve.

Kizzy, Abigail, and Natalie took on caretaking roles for their younger siblings. Kizzy felt that her younger siblings relied on her because she was the oldest, and that she had to handle the burden of caring for them. These responsibilities ranged from getting them ready in the morning to providing emotional support for them. This was stressful for Kizzy and she felt that she had to grow up really quickly, because stress does that to kids. She felt that just being the oldest you just feel like there’s more pressure on you, even if others don’t explicitly put extra pressure on you. For Abigail, taking care of her younger sister involved minding her at the expense of her own social endeavours. Abigail’s caretaking role extended to maintaining a peaceful relationship between her younger sister and her father when the three would spend time together. She did this in order to make up for her sister’s lack of love for their father, and continued to strive toward remaining the perfect daughter to her parents. Natalie’s caretaking role for her younger brothers began before the divorce. She and her older sister facilitated their parents’ divorce so that their younger brothers could live in a household with less control and abuse.

All of the participants took on caretaking roles for their parents at points in their narratives. For Natalie and Hank, they began to care for their mothers before the

separation. Hank would emotionally support his mother, encouraging her to request a divorce from his father. For Natalie, she and her sister facilitated their mother’s escape from the marriage. Natalie and her sister also assisted in the divorce process by providing affidavits and helping with the court proceedings when their mother needed.

Kizzy, The Fox and Addy all provided emotional support to their parents following the divorce. Addy’s mother would come to her for advice, strength, and

courage. In a way she stopped being Addy’s mother and became this person who needs help, and Addy took the vulnerability out of it and did not take anything she says personally. The Fox stepped into the role of partner and emotional support for his mother. She would consult The Fox about the money, about how she’s feeling and how she couldn’t deal with the separation, asking if he thought she did the right thing by leaving his abusive father. The Fox believes that you don’t put those things on a child, so that’s when he had to grow up really quickly to have to deal with that.

There was also an adoption of diplomatic measures in participants’ interactions and roles. Abigail acted as a peacekeeper for her family members by smoothing the relationship between her father and sister, as mentioned above. She also tried to protect her mother from finding out about her father’s girlfriend by leaving information out of stories, and vetting photos of family vacations with him. For Natalie, after a few difficult years of shutting her father out of her life she invited him and his new family in, knowing that he is so important to her younger brothers and that she would need to interact with her father if she wishes to take an active role in their lives.

Finally, participants had become their own caretakers following the divorces. Addy, The Fox and Kizzy quickly took on household tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and getting themselves off to school. Abigail learned to keep herself quiet and busy so as not to disturb her mother, while also caring for her sister. Addy and Abigail both felt the need to financially provide for themselves at this time. Addy contributed financially to her own endeavours and the family expenses, whereas Abigail was more interested in not

being a financial burden to her parents in her goal of being the perfect daughter. Addy, The Fox, and Natalie both became their own emotional supports following their parents’ separations, which will be further explored in the following section.

4.2.2.3

Available support.

Participants also discussed various sources from which they received support. Kizzy, Abigail, Addy, and Natalie all reported seeking support from family members. For Kizzy, her mother claims she was the family’s biggest support, but Kizzy disagreed. She and her siblings would support each other to a degree, but she felt that she provided more than she received. Natalie and her sister supported each other before, during, and after the divorce. Abigail eventually received support from her older sister, and the two sorted out some of their feelings about the divorce after many years. Similarly, Addy eventually received support from her father, after over a year without communication.

Friends were another important source of support. Abigail relied on her two best friends for support, and they did not disappoint. These friends were really supportive of everything and she was very thankful that she has them to lean on. It was important for Abigail to be able to talk to her friends about it. It was especially helpful that one of them had experienced a parental divorce and could help Abigail through the transition with advice and hope. Similarly, Addy relied on a friend during her parents’ divorce. His parents had been divorced since he can remember had already gone through all the shit that she was going through. She was able to have more serious and mature conversations

about her home life, her parents’ separation, and how it was affecting her. He was there for her in a way that she didn’t know she needed someone to be there, which gave her a lot of insight into life with divorced parents.

Kizzy and Natalie, however, found their lack of peer support to be particularly upsetting. For Natalie, even though she was forbidden from telling people about it, she

still would tell her friends about her father’s abuse and eventually, her parents’

separation, but their responses of mild concern were inadequate. It made Natalie almost regret telling them because she felt that they were trivializing what she was going through, that their reaction was disproportionately small and not as supportive as she

was hoping for. She had to deal with the isolating knowledge that they could not truly understand her. When Kizzy was asked the kinds of support that she wished she had at the time, she responded, “I wish I had friends. I wish I had known I needed support. I wish I’d known that I was eleven, I was not an adult and it was okay to get upset, and it was okay to just be upset my parents were divorcing.” Kizzy was bullied in school and had a difficult home situation. Having friends to open up to would have been helpful.

Hank and The Fox both sought support from male role models. The Fox was

drawn towards what he would call father figures, who were often older males such as his

Aikido teacher or schoolteachers. But The Fox found that whenever he started to accept somebody as that sort of surrogate older male role that they always end up gone in some way. He wondered what an ideal father figure might look like, sharing that a lot of people don’t get along with their fathers. He recalls one friend who had a really great

relationship with his dad, and described it as odd to see. The Fox asked a lot of questions about what the friend and his father do or talk about, and what his dad did when he was angry. He was just trying to find out like what’s a good relationship with a father because, while he’s had these male figures in his life, he’s never had an actual father. Hank had many of the same questions, but learned how a father was supposed to be and how a man was supposed to act from the prototypes in movies and literature.

Natalie and Kizzy also addressed seeking help from professionals. Kizzy mainly had access to abuse counselling, and felt that she had to focus on the abuse rather than other issues regarding her parents’ divorce and her mounting anxiety and depression. For Natalie, she sought professional help with the assistance of her mother, but when her father found out, he forbade her from ever going back to a therapist. She also approached available resources at school, such as her school chaplain and priest. She asked for help,

resources, or even someone to talk to. The most that they could do was just nod their heads, give a sad face, and say, “Okay, well, have you tried talking to him?” She found their responses patronizing and unhelpful and left feeling felt more isolated than before. Finally, participants sought support and comfort through socially unacceptable activities. Addy turned to her unhealthy relationship with her boyfriend, who had been

with her through her parents’ separation. She eventually realized that the relationship was unhealthy and ended it. Addy continued to get herself into some mischief, feeling that she had earned it by being so otherwise responsible, and that it allowed her to assert her independence from her parents. Kizzy’s family tended to catastrophize situations, knowing that they would not get attention unless their problem was overwhelming. She recalled her mother saying, “you need to be suicidal to get help.” It led to a mindset of negative experiences not being ‘bad enough’ to warrant sympathy, and leading Kizzy to up the ante. This led to multiple suicide attempts by Kizzy as a way to get out of the stress, because she subconsciously learned this coping mechanism to try and get out of things.